


woodwose

by cygnes



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Discussion of Animal Death, Gen, Implied Cannibalism, Implied Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 13:31:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13858770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cygnes/pseuds/cygnes
Summary: What they have is less an agreement and more an understanding. They are both their Leader’s creatures.





	woodwose

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://manzanas-amargas.tumblr.com/post/171473196220/minific-woodwose) on my tumblr. I'm currently drowning in life obligations (grad school, two jobs, freelance work), so realistically I know I'm not going to be able to write the full AU this fic is set in. The basic idea (paraphrased from the tags on the tumblr post) is this: 
> 
> It's like _The Village_ and _The Witch_ had an exceptionally ugly baby. Snoke (an evil wizard just hanging out and doing his own thing in the modern world, Randall Flagg-style) has made some kind of time loop or pocket universe deep in a national forest. Some people were born there or brought there very young and legitimately think it's Ye Olden Tymes. Others came from the outside world and ended up trapped there, where they either have to adjust or get ritually cannibalized by Kylo, Snoke's shitty modern evil wizard apprentice. Kylo mostly lives in the woods but can pass back and forth from Snoke's weird historical reenactment bubble to the modern world outside (and supplements his cannibalism with truck stop snacks). 
> 
> The ostensible plot of the story would involve Poe getting stuck there, only to realize that he knows Kylo from before Kylo ran away to live in the woods and learn evil wizardry. He gets cast out, Finn goes into the murder woods to rescue him, and they both meet Rey, a quasi-survivalist hiker who gets them out of Snoke's bubble. Kylo's like "shit, this girl has magic too, I either have to get her to join forces with me... or eat her to gain her power..."
> 
> Anyway, the most important visual note for this actual fic is that Kylo's probably wearing grimy jeans and a hoodie, and Hux (in linen and scratchy wool) is like "ah yes, his mystical garb."

What they have is less an agreement and more an understanding. They are both their Leader’s creatures.

If Armitage Hux should see to it that someone is cast out from what little society can be said to exist beside this great forest — cast out, more importantly, from under the gaze of his eye and the reach of his arm — they will not return. They cannot return. Because if any one of them came back, others who had silently nursed their own petty discontentment would know they had another place to go. And there is no such place. There cannot be.

What little society there is at the edge of this great forest would break down if there were alternatives. There must be order for their ever-dwindling number to have hope of surviving.

The man in the woods is a way of maintaining order, though he himself seems to be a thing of chaos. He does not venture near their settlement except when a warning is necessary to stir up fear. The fear, too, is necessary to maintain order.

“What are you doing?” Hux says.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” says the man from the woods (who is not the man _in_ the woods when he’s standing in one of the livestock pens next to Hux’s little house).

“Stealing a chicken,” Hux says. He had not wanted to waste a candle or even a rush-light when the moon is so bright, to say nothing of the attention it might draw. He regrets that choice now. He can’t see the man’s face. Only the glint of his eyes, which seem to shine yellow, like a wolf’s. Like a goat’s.

“Not stealing,” the man says. “Sending a message. I was going to leave it.”

“If you do less damage than a fox, don’t bother,” Hux says. “They’ll say it was one of the cats. At best. At worst, just a chicken stupid enough to break its own neck.”

“I’ll use one of the cats, then,” the man says, and takes a step forward. “Where’s yours?” Strictly speaking, Hux does not have a cat. No one owns the cats; they go where there are mice, or where people are inclined to feed them. Hux’s house is near the grain stores, as befits his station. That’s all. If the best mouser of the bunch deigns to creep inside when his back is turned, then it’s just his good luck.

“The cats are useful,” Hux says.

“The chickens are useful,” the man from the woods says. “You eat them, don’t you? The eggs? The _meat_?” There’s something unsavory in the way he says ‘meat.’ Something sneering, condescending, like he doesn’t think a fat, tame bird deserves the term.

Hux has never asked what he eats, out in the inhospitable woods. There’s so little to forage. He knows; he’s looked. He’s sent others with sharper eyes and quicker hands to look. Everything they have is from their own hard work and nature’s propensity for multiplication. (Everything they have is from making the best of what little their Leader provides for the settlement.)

“You’ll have to eat the cats, too,” the man says, as though he heard Hux’s thoughts. “Before long. If you keep squandering what you’ve been given.”

“We do our best,” Hux says stiffly.

“Your best might not be good enough for our Leader,” the man says. His eyes seem dark and liquid now. Less like an animal’s. “Maybe he’ll wipe the slate clean. Start a new village with people who know what they’re doing.”

“Yes,” Hux says. “And I suppose the same might be true of you, if you don’t become something more than what you are now.” The man from the woods takes another step forward. Hux doesn’t waver back or allow himself to lose ground. If he does, he’ll be the body they find in the morning. It’s too dark to see the wild man’s teeth, but something in him thinks — knows — they are sharp.

“Not a cat, not a chicken,” the man says. “Then what?”

“The chicken will do fine, if you make some sort of display of it,” Hux says. “Read its entrails for wisdom, write something arcane in its blood. Whatever it is you do. I just meant that you’d have to do more than snap its neck.”

“Whatever it is I do,” the man says sourly. “You know nothing of our true mission. _My_ true mission.”

“That may be,” Hux agrees. He goes back inside. It takes a great force of will to turn his back on the man from the woods, and on the woods themselves, which are worse by far. He needs his rest. There are functions he must serve. There is always, always judgment to be passed.

**Author's Note:**

> Big ups to [skazka](http://archiveofourown.org/users/skazka/pseuds/skazka), who validated my bonkers tag spiral on the original post and encouraged me to put this on AO3.


End file.
